I knew it was coming. When I started working at the shop in Viewpoint Mall, Michael hadn’t even heard of the store before.

Then a week and a half ago he tells me Jan and her sister discovered the shop, and she just LOVED it.

Oh no.

I wasn’t too too worried. I knew that there was another location of the store closer to where Michael lived, and he never talked about coming to my part of town for anything. I figured I was safe.

I was wrong.

I was helping out at the registers when I saw him turn the corner waving at me, Jan in tow. Luckily it had slowed down and I had just signed off my register. I gave a quick grunt that sounded somewhat like a hello and hopped on a telephone as quick as possible to call one of the other departments with some inane question.

Jan and Michael camped out just to the right of me while I was on the phone. I turned my head to the left as if looking for something and as soon as I was done on the phone, hung up and bolted in the opposite direction of them. I then hid in a stock room until I was sure the two were gone.

You know someone is desperate to make conversation with you when they share with you the opinions of people you don’t know. Or tell you stories about things they haven’t done.

This was my life during Oscar season.

As I’ve mentioned before, Michael loves trying to start movie discussion with me. It never ends well because we just don’t have similar enough tastes.

Yet he insisted on asking me what of the Oscar movies I had seen and what I thought of them.

At that time, I had only seen one of the main contenders: Slumdog Millionaire. Which I told him I really liked.

“Huh I’ll have to go check that out,” he said rattling off all the things he had to do that would prevent him from seeing it this weekend, and mulling over which theaters would actually be screening the film.

So after that weekend passed, he came over to give me a report.

“Well I didn’t get to see Slumdog Millionaire this weekend,” Michael announced.

“Um. OK.”

“But Jan’s sister did with her husband and they really liked it.”

Blank stare.

“Of course they didn’t like Mama Mia, which I loved, so I don’t know how much I trust their opinion.”

I shrugged. I had absolutely no idea what to say to this. Why on earth would I care one little teeny tiny bit about what JAN’S SISTER and JAN’S SISTER’S HUSBAND though about a movie I’ve already told him I liked.

Well maybe I’ll get to see it this weekend, he said relapsing into his list of all the things he may or may not have planned.

Is this what Michael considers a conversation?

So another weekend passes. And come Monday he reports to me again that he hasn’t seen it.

And Friday he tells me they plan to see it that weekend. And THEN repeats the story about how Jan’s sister saw it and liked it (but he doesn’t know if he can trust her).

Wow you’re really going to milk that ONE conversation we had a month ago until it’s dead aren’t you, Michael.

So the next week comes and he hasn’t seen it again! Honestly Michael, I couldn’t care less whether you see this stupid movie or not. Did I say I liked it? Oh I meant I hated it with a burning passion. There will you leave me alone now?

But they did see one of the other Oscar movies, he tells me. And proceeds to tell me all about it, without prompting of course.

Finally, FINALLY, he sees Slumdog Millionaire.

And the verdict?

“We enjoyed it,” he said.

That was it. No discussion about it. No questions about what I thought about certain scenes. No expounding on what he liked about it. I think he liked talking about NOT seeing it more than seeing it.

Michael talking to Jan on the phone allll day? Looks like iPod time for Jim. Never go to work without it.

A couple Mondays ago, a week or so after my confrontation with Michael, I called off sick.

We had some major shake-ups at Dunder Mifflin the week before, and despite the fact that Michael had spent all weekend with Jan, he felt the need to talk to her six times that day about said office drama, my source Jim tells me.

“It seems your talk really had an impact on him,” Jim said. “Of course he doesn’t care about the rest of us because we weren’t the ones who talked to him.”

A snippett of one of those six calls (as relayed to me by Jim)

“Yeah, those f*ckers,” Michael said.

“I could have probably worded that better.”

(In a loud whisper) “No it’s OK, she’s not here today.”

…

Right, Michael. It’s ME that’s the problem, not your behavior. Little does he know I’ve become a bit of a hero in my part of the office for putting a stop to the goo-goo ga-ga. Funny enough, swearing doesn’t bother me nearly as much, except he sounds like a moron when he tries to swear rather than the tough guy he’s trying to be. Again it’s really more embarrassing (for him) than offensive.

Tomorrow … Angela teaches us how to save money at our office during these tough times.

“I just wanted to thank you for bringing this issue to my attention and say sorry for anything I have said,” he said.

“OK.”

“And thank you for bringing this to me instead of, of…”

“Going over your head with it?” I finished his sentence. (Though I suspect he meant “going to HR with it.” Whoops. Too late for that).

“Yes.”

“No problem,” I said. (Please oh please let this end soon.)

“So I talked to Jan about all of this,” he said. (He had disappeared for quite a while that morning. Must have taken his cell phone outside for such a personal call. We’re making progress!) “And she did remember one thing that I said yesterday that if you were only hearing one part of the conversation could have been misunderstood.”

(Oh God kill me now.)

“It was a joke,” he continued. “And you might have thought it was funny … or not. But that’s beside the point.”

(Oh I got the joke Michael, I thought to myself. What’s gold and could come in an OS model? A car! I know Jan and Michael are looking into buying one. Gold star to all who got it correct.)

“Now as for the baby talk … ” he continued.

(Seriously, God. A lightning bolt to my head would be awesome right now.)

“Now you know sometimes Jan’s sister visits during the day and brings her baby over. And yesterday the baby was crying in the background and I mimicked her crying noise to be funny.”

(Oh for the love of all that’s good and holy. I scrunched up my whole face.)

“That’s not what I mean at ALL, Michael” I said. “I don’t mean imitating a literal infant. I mean the way you talk to her ALL THE TIME. The BABY voice. The cooing and the lovey dovey and the talking like you’re a toddler. I…I… I’m not going to imitate it. It’s far too embarrassing.”

“Uhhhh OK,” he said. “Well I guess I’ll try to be more mindful of that.”

I had no faith he actually would change considering he didn’t even know what I was talking about.

But he has done very well. His talks with Jan sound, dare I say, normal.

Michael has always had a problem controlling how he talks to Jan on the phone while at work.

When he calls her, he’ll begin the conversation by saying “It’s me.”

Except it actually sounds like this: “Itch Schmee.” In the most gross out goo-goo ga-ga voice you’ve ever heard, which works it’s way into the entire conversation.

I’m not sure I can spell the cooing he’ll do when she tells him she’s having a rough day. But I’ll try.

“Awwwww-aaboochi-boochi-boobooboo.”

Say that out loud. Go ahead.

Now imagine having to hear your boss making that noise at his desk. And then having to take him seriously when he approaches you with an assignment five minutes later.

Now I’ve put up with that for years. Jim and I can’t even look at each other when Michael is on the phone with Jan because we’ll absolutely lose it.

He and Creed and I get a good laugh out of it later when Michael isn’t around. He knows we can hear him, right? Does he really not see a huge difference between how he talks to Jan and how we talk to our significant others?

But recently, he crossed the line.

A transcript (written in Michael Scott baby-talk dialect)

“Hewow”

“How are youuuu?”

“Did you get to wook it up?”

“Was it the gold wun?”

“Wazsh it the OS model?”

(in a loud nonwhisper whisper) “The oral sex model?”

“Yesh I know I’m soooo byaaaad. hehehehe”

…

OK. I’ve kept quiet as Michael asked Jan if she had a nappie and how her bubble bathy was.

But this was getting out of control. I was going to lose my mind if I had to endure this any longer.

(to be continued)

P.S. That night I figured out what Jan and Michael’s conversation was actually about. I’ll let you guys take a crack at it. What’s your best guess?

Happy April Fool’s Day, everyone! Not that this is a joke. I sooooo wish I were joking.

Before I tell you about the day I drew the line with Michael’s inappropriate office talk, let me say that I finally met with my HR rep!

And it was really cool.

I mean, I don’t know if anything will come of it. But Toby did say he would be in our office more regularly (he works in our corporate building).

And he said he might institute a mandatory manager sexual harassment “retraining” to address the problem with Michael without singling him out. I emphasized that none of Michael’s comments made fme feel threatened or harassed. I was just sick of him bragging about dodging something that should be no big deal.

Getting my concerns on record confidentially (oxymoron anyone?) has really helped me feel empowered to talk to Michael about issues I have with him without fear he’ll try to fire me.

Well he might try, but with HR at my back, it’ll be much harder for him. I’ve heard horror stories about staff members who have offended Michael personally. And they all no longer work with this company.

So when Michael made an oral sex joke to Jan on the phone… I finally felt like I could do something about it.

“So ordered all this stuff for Jan for Valentine’s Day,” Michael said leaning on my desk while I was mid-typing. “Of course she knew about it because she’s the one who guilted me into buying all of it.”

“Uh-huh”

“She saw some TV show where she said there was a special where you could get these flowers and chocolate covered strawberries for $50, and if you bought them together it was 2 cents cheaper.”

“Uh huh.”

“So I look on the Web site and I see the special on the flowers, but not on the strawberries. Well it turns out they are $50 EXTRA, when you order the flowers, not $50 total.

“Uh-huh.”

“So they were supposed to arrive today, but she called and said she hadn’t gotten them yet. But I had gotten an e-mail saying that they were delivered at 2:26.”

“Uh-huh”

“So I told her, well did you look out front, or maybe in the garage. And somehow they had gotten then in the garage!”

“Uh-huh”

Pause.

“I thought I wasn’t going to have to buy her anything this year. I mean we’re staying at the Hilton Garden Inn and seeing that play, which we were supposed to be paying for using that gift card that got lost. I would think that would be enough!”

“Uh-huh”

“I’ve certainly gotten by cheaper in the past, that’s for sure.” Finally he started heading toward his office.

Pause.

“That’s OK. She did give me the money at Christmas that I told her to spend on herself and told me to put toward a new bicycle.”

…

Uh-huh.

Can you FEEL the love in the air? Happy Valentine’s Day my lovely Dunderheads!

So Jan’s boss gave her a gift card to the Electric Theatre Company.
And somehow one of them lost it.
Like lost lost it.
Michael was on the phone all morning doing the baby voice with Jan.
“Are you mad at me?”
“You’re not mad at me are you?”
“Well I looked all over and I couldn’t find it.”
“Well I looked in the place where I always keep gift cards and it wasn’t there.”
“Well I’m not sure it was me who lost it.”
“No no no I just really don’t think I lost it.”
More cooing ensued to make up for the attempt Michael made to blame Jan.

As soon as he was off the phone he was griping to Jim that he knows Jan was the one who lost the card, not him.
But because he doesn’t have the balls to say that to Jan, he spent his day on the phone with the play company trying to get them to give him another gift card. Even though we had a pressing deadline and she … was making candles at home with no orders to fill or anything.

So after explaining to the theater’s customer service the situation and being told that it says right on the card that the theater is not responsible for lost or stolen cards, Michael starts getting huffy.
“I personally think it’s a very customer unfriendly policy.”
“Well I’m sure other places have policies for lost cards.” (no, no they don’t, Michael)
“Well is there someone above you who I could write to?”
“Well wouldn’t that be like writing to you?”
“Well it’s confusing which is actually the gift card because we have a slip of paper that says ‘This is not a ticket, but then it says ‘Electric Theatre Company gift card’ and the amount of the gift card on it.” (Erm, yeah. The slip of paper is what we like to call a RECEIPT, Michael. That piece of plastic that you chucked in the trash. That is a gift card. I can see how you might get confused, though.)
Finally Michael gets the customer servcie rep to say he might be able to help him out if the person who bought the initial gift card calls in. But otherwise his hands are tied.
Luckily having overheard all of this, I was able to prepare my responses when Michael inevitably cornered me to dump this story on me.
“Oh no, you have to be SO careful with gift cards,” I said when he approached me as I was trying to leave work. “They are JUST like cash. All of them say right on them ‘not responsible if lost or stolen,'” I said as dramatically as possible.
He even tried to play the “I was confused” game with me.
“But there was an actual PLASTIC gift card, right?” I asked.
He said no, that all he had was the slip of paper mentioned above. But later mentioned that the receipt didn’t have the same numbers as the plastic gift card printed on it, so the theater said they couldn’t help him.
“OH,” I said. “SO there WAS an actually piece of plastic that was the legitimate gift card?”
“Well yes, allegedly. I think I remember one,” he said.
Right Michael.
The highlight: Jan refused to tell her employer that she (or Michael, whatever) lost the gift card because she was embarrassed. So she is making Michael buy tickets to a show so she can tell them about the nice time they had.
Am I a bad person for enjoying that so much?

P.S. I have no idea what the policies are of the actual Electric Theatre Company. All names and locations are changed for the sake of anonymity.

Jan’s sister got married this summer. Somehow Jan managed to rope Michael into playing an integral part in financing and helping to plan for the wedding.

And in turn, he both complained to us about the responsibility and gloated about what a great guy he was.

Michael took more time off to help with this wedding than I took off for my own wedding/honeymoon. He took the three days prior to the wedding off, despite the fact that we were facing a major deadline, because Jan needed his help. And the days he was here he was on the phone constantly working on last-minute details for the wedding rather than helping us. Not to mention the days he took off for the secondary reception in Oregon … but we’ll get to that later.

I only got to take one day off before my wedding and was worked to the bone on my last day to get through another project on deadline. No I’m not bitter….not at all.

And all week before Jan’s sister got hitched, Michael kept walking around telling us how BAD he felt that he wouldn’t be around to help us and going on and on about his guilty conscience.

I guess the guilt melted away pretty quickly upon his return the Tuesday after the wedding (he needed to take Monday off, too, of course, to recover).

“Well the wedding went well,” Michael said.

“Good,” I said absently.

“Especially my hole in one on Thursday,” he grinned.

“You were golfing on Thursday?” I asked. Thursday had been the deadline for our project.

“Yeah all the men connected to the wedding went,” he said.

“Mmmmmm.”

“Of course Jan wasn’t happy about it when people kept talking about my hole-in-one all weekend.”

“I bet not.”

I think I knew how Jan felt as Michael proceeded to hit every person in the office to tell them about his hole-in-one he made on the day that he allegedly felt just terrible about not being able to help us.

He’s our boss, I guess he can take whatever days he wants off — but please PLEASE spare us the fake guilt.